You Can Say More
by SecondSilk
Summary: Many years ago Wesley spent an evening in a bar with a young woman, who a little bit about prophecies. Crossover with Harry Potter.
1. Meeting Point

For a Short Time.

A Harry Potter / Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Rose Williams.

Owned by JK Rowling.

Rated PG for alcohol consumption.

Author's Notes: This was inspired by the story behind the song For a Short Time, by Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing. It will be at least a week before the next chapter, sorry.

* * *

_Sometimes you can say more, in a drunken hour or so_

_Than some people get across, in a life of lying low._

_And sometimes you can feel more, for someone you've barley kissed,_

_but you don't see it at the time, and the moment that you've missed._

* * *

At twenty-one Wesley was the quintessential public school Oxford graduate: he was more comfortable in slacks than jeans and had never worn a windcheater in his life. His woollen jumper was dark green tonight, and suited him well. The four of them were all dressed like that, celebrating their first day of freedom from study with a drinking session at pub closest to Matthew's parents' house.

The publican had seemed surprised to see the group arrive. But he was willing to sell them as many pints of ale as they could afford. Wesley looked around the dark bar and dirty floor and thought that green was probably a good colour to have worn. The Rusty Nail attracted a usual crowd of blunt faced farmers and the occasional boat crew.

There was a battered old pool table in one corner. The light above it flickered occasionally, and there was only one cue, but Wesley stood up and to find the chalk.

"Rudy, a game?" he called.

Matthew had to punch Rudy lightly on the shoulder before the heavier man responded, which he did only by blinking stupidly.

"I'll play," a voice said.

Wesley almost dropped the chalk in shock. She was beautiful. In this dingy bar in the English Midlands there was a beautiful woman, who was his age. Her green eyes and red hair were noticeable, even in the weak light. The hotel boats had gone through the day before, so she wasn't a local tourist. In fact, she looked remarkably comfortable standing in the bar in an old looking long skirt and blouse.

The rest of the bar weren't staring at her the way they had at the Oxford boys, so she was probably a local. This meant the other drinkers would defend her against him. Wesley decided to play it safe, and smiled, he hoped.

"I would be honoured," he managed, and bowed.

His gallantry always went down better when he'd had a few. The woman smiled and held out her hand.

"I'm Lily," she said.

"Wesley," he replied, shaking her hand.

"Do you want to break?" she asked.

Wesley accepted as nonchalantly as possible. Lily collected the balls and set them on the table before standing back to let Wesley start.

He broke, and they played in silence to the third pot. Then Lily, who had obviously been checking out Wesley's clothes and his friends in the corner, asked:

"What did you study?"

"History," Wesley said.

Lily nodded neutrally and Wesley felt a great desire to prove himself.

"And, ah, mythology, classics, comparative religion."

"I know a bit of mythology," Lily said. "What myths."

"Vampires," Wesley said. He took the cue back off her and tried to set up his shot. "Mostly, anyway. And demons, prophecy, how fate works."

"Fate?" Lily echoed.

"You're sceptical," Wesley said, "A lot of people are."

"Not exactly," Lily said. "I just mean, is there like a book where everything that's going to happen to us is written down?"

"That's not fate," Wesley said, sounding more certain for the alcohol. "Fate is that there are a certain number of things that have to happen, and some of what we have now is here so that that can happen. But the rest is just everyday stuff, the choices people make."

Lily lined up her shot for the three-ball carefully to give herself some time.

"Choices can also generate fate, though," she said. "Or chance."

"Yeah," Wesley agreed heartily.

He grinned as she missed the pocket by half an inch, and took the cue.

"There's no book that was written at the beginning. And there are all sorts of prophecies that cancel each other out. Or get fulfilled by accident when no one's looking."

"They all get fulfilled, though, don't they?" Lily said.

Wesley barely registered the depression in her voice.

"It depends on the interpretation," he said. "That's the thing with translating them. You have to be careful you don't get carried away with what you think is going to happen."

"What about modern prophecies, clairvoyants?"

Wesley blinked as Lily potted two balls in succession and lined up the shot for a third. She wouldn't make, so he forced himself to answer her question.

"Don't know of any," he said. "Most of the Slayer prophecies are hundreds of years old. We're getting towards the end of them, too. Some people reckon we might only have fifty years left."

"You said Slayer. The girl-warrior? It's your shot," she added, handing back the cue and taking another sip of her drink.

"She's in South America at the moment," Wesley said.

He took care to line up his shot. There were now only a few balls on the table, and he wanted to win, or at least loose respectfully.

"You're all going to be Watchers?" Lily asked.

If Wesley had had any less to drink he might have questioned how such a girl in such a place would have heard about the Slayer. If he were sober he would have remembered the strange people lived in the Midlands, but as it was he grinned at the sense of awe in her voice.

"Oh, yes," he said. "We're celebrating the start of our freedom. You know, before we have to start as graduates in autumn."

"Must be nice," Lily sighed.

Wesley noticed her tone, even through the alcohol and raised an eyebrow. Lily shrugged.

"Just, prophecies," she said. "They can be a bit… constraining."

Lily won by two shots, mostly because she had had less to drink than Wesley. She joined his friends at their table and they bought her another drink to celebrate her win.

"To freedom," they toasted.

Lily raised her glass with a wistful sigh.

"She knows about the Slayer," Wesley said.

Matthew, Rudy and Thomas seemed to think this was a brilliant discovery and preceded to tell Lily everything they could remember after seven years of schooling and a large quantity of alcohol.

Lily had never cared for ale, and so was drinking cider. But the sweetness belied the fact that it was much more alcoholic than Butterbeer, which was all she had ever drunk before.

She soon found herself telling these nice, young, Muggle men much more than she would have under any other circumstances. But then, they were probably talking too much too.

They discussed prophecy, fate, determinism and Margaret Thatcher. Lily didn't join in the talk of current politics, but they did learn that she was married, with a son.

"A boy, very good," Rudy had declared. "A toast to the boy."

They all drank again, Lily giggling into her cider.

"Why isn't your husband here, then?" Matthew asked. "He's confident enough to let as pretty a wife as you out on your own."

"Oh, I'm well able to look after myself," Lily said. "Or at least, I always thought so. Seems I can't do that anymore, or at least, we can't protect Harry ourselves."

And that Lily considered this day her last day of freedom. Wesley had a visceral reaction to her sentiments. She noticed the stricken look on his face and patted his hand clumsily.

"We'll be secrets," she said. "Not prisoners. And we have good friends."

Wesley had nodded, reassured more by her tone of voice than the words. The evening slowly faded into a blur of football talk, the history of the Royal house of Windsor and a sense of joy Wesley hadn't felt before. He was sure that most of it had to do with the three of them finding Lily and getting her to laugh.

Sometime soon before they left. Lily stood up so suddenly Thomas had fallen over. Most of the locals had cleared out, so there was no one to complain. Lily took a camera out of her bag and held it up like a prize.

"What are you doing with that?" Matthew asked.

"I'm going to take a photo," Lily said. "I've only got one or two shots left. I thought I'd print them tomorrow."

Rudy dragged Thomas back up off the floor and propped himself up on his elbows. Matthew dragged Wesley into the middle of the group. Lily smiled cheekily as she lined up the focus, so Wesley pocked his tongue out at her. The shutter clicked and she laughed.

"You ruined it," she told him.

"Take the next one," Matthew demanded.

Lily carefully put the camera back into her bag and sat back down.

"It was the last shot," she said.

Matthew pouted. Lily smacked him lightly, but it didn't help.

"I have to go now, anyway," she said. "I have things to do tomorrow, you know?"

The three Watchers-to-be nodded sagely. They stood as she did to escort her out the door.

"Do you want to be walked home?" Wesley asked, not forgetting her comments about able to look after herself.

"No, thank you," Lily said. "And thanks for a wonderful night."

In a fit of free spirits she kissed each of them warmly and walked backwards down the street waving at them. They all waved back, more than a little dazed, and she laughed, before turning her back on them and walking back into Godric's Hollow.

Wesley watched her go with a warm smile. For one evening, in the presence of the strange woman, he had felt like a normal person, freed from the constraints of his father and his calling. He promised himself that if he remembered nothing else about the evening he would remember that and the power of prophecies, which could wreck such havoc on the people they concerned, just by their very existence.


	2. Discoveries: Remus

Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Chaos for beta-ing. The third, and last, chapter should be soon. It will focus on Wesley again.

* * *

Remus wanted to tear the house down around his ears. He couldn't, however, because it was all he had left of the Marauders. So he was taking the house apart slowly instead. He started in the back of the pantry in the kitchen and picked up every article. He was a man on a mission, everything was going to be either cleaned or thrown out.

People came to help him occasionally, but he rarely let them. Molly forced food on him, Tonks took him for walks to trade Sirius stories, and Harry wrote asking for progress reports. By Easter Remus made it into the room Sirius had procured for Buckbeak. The higher up in the house he got, the more often he was overcome by memories that he had long since refused to call upon.

Buckbeak had gone back to Hogwarts after Lucius Malfoy's arrest. Draco had, apparently, been persuaded to amend his statement. It hadn't helped Remus's temper at all: the reminder that the Ministry bureaucracy was so easy to manipulate in so many ways. But he couldn't have cared for a Hippogriff in his manic state.

The bedroom, which had been Mrs Black's before is was Buckbeak's, was now as soulless and dusty as the rest of the house. Remus didn't expect to find much here, but he took down the curtains and sent them to the 'furnishings' pile with a wave of his wand. He stripped the bed and treated each sheet, the hangings, and the mattress in the same way. Carefully he went through the room until it was completely empty and performed a vanishing charm on the dust.

For the first time, he could see a trap door in the floor that had been under the dressing table. With his wand drawn, Remus carefully opened it and removed the crate that sat snugly in the gap between the joists. He felt like a little kid winning treasure hunt. He opened the box fearfully.

Nothing leapt out at him, and he almost laughed at his fear. Then he saw what the box actually contained and sat back heavily on the floor. Staring up at him was… himself. It was old photo, maybe fourth year, of him, Peter, Sirius and James. They were sitting together at the edge of the lake, taking in the first of the spring warmth.

It was fourth year, he remember, because Susan had taken the photo with Sirius's camera. Sirius was grinning his most charming smile at her (he'd been wooing her for months), and Remus tried to remember how he had ever thought his friend capable of betraying them.

"Because you had to," he told himself, not for the first time. "The only thing you had besides grief for James and Lily, was anger at Sirius."

He went through the box just like he had gone through every room in the house. He took each item out, cleaned it with a wave of his wand and set it in its own space on the old wooden floor.

There was the banner Peter and fifth year Prefect Douglass Croft had made when they had finally beaten Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup in third year. He wondered how Sirius had managed to steal it off James.

There were other reminders of happier times at Hogwarts. Remus supposed that Sirius had collected them together and hidden them as preparation to go into hiding. He forced himself to go through them, to remember the story behind each one; the feather they'd tried to bewitch to take notes in Binns's class, the prototype Marauders' maps, and the carefully laid out Transfiguration notes Remus had copied for Sirius before his NEWTs.

At the bottom of the box were two letters, still folded. They looked like they had been pushed past everything else, buried in the bottom of the box. The elder had been screwed up into a ball at some stage, too, and even here and now, Remus could recognise Peter's meticulous, but childish print.

He opened the letter slowly.

_Dear Sirius,_

I know that you've been worried about that draughty window. I think I found the cause of the leak, although you won't be pleased. And I am so very sorry.

I saw Moony talking to Edward McNair this morning. I was walking up from West End, and I saw the two of them outside one of the hotels. They obviously knew each other, and seemed to reach an agreement that pleased them both.

I naturally thought that they were merely 'playing nice' to avoid attracting attention. But I know that Edward and Moony have more in common with each other than we will ever understand.

Peter.

Well, that explained a lot, Remus thought, vaguely. The weak rat couldn't even lie to Sirius's face. There was a detached part of him that was still able to form coherent thoughts, and it wondered how long it was before the rest of him got over the shock. He never had asked how or why Sirius had thought him the traitor. It had always seemed just the way things went, a convenient blip on the monster story of their lives that would never be better for being acknowledged.

The second letter was from Lily, and he opened it carefully. A photograph fell out of it. It was a group of four unfamiliar men, in Muggle clothes. It looked like they were in a pub somewhere. They all looked drunk, but the middle one was staring straight at the camera, poking his tongue out at whoever was taking the picture.

The letter was all Lily, neatly written with the occasional flourish at the end of a sentence.

_Dearest Padfoot,_

I am allowed to call you that, because as the only dog I would ever write letters to, you are any superlative I want to throw at you.

I think I may have been very foolish last night. Thank you so much for taking Harry for us. I know James spent part of the evening talking to his parents. I went to a pub. Crazy, I know, but I just wanted to be Muggle again, in a world where there aren't Dark Wizards trying to kill your baby boy because some crazy old woman had a fit.

Although, I didn't do very well, look at who I found. Each of these young men is going to be a Watcher. I stumbled across one of the secrets of the Wizarding world, and beat the middle one (Wesley) at pool. (You remember, the game with the colour balls and the sticks?)

I feel better about everything now, though. I think your plan is a good one. Just make sure you keep an eye on the rat for us. I worry sometimes that he feels in a little over his head. With him to keep us safe, and you to keep him safe, I think we'll be fine.

Wesley and his friends were telling me about the Slayer. There are prophecies about her, too. I know we have a better chance than she does, and more help. Did you know that there's just her and her Watcher? They take her away from her family and everything. As much as Petunia seems to hate me, I would hate to loose her.

If going out, drinking too much and bemoaning my fate to Muggles wasn't foolish enough, this letter certainly is. Part of me is still reckless, though, because if we're found, I'll have something to fight. James assures me it's the part he loves best, so I'll send the letter, and proof that I met people faced with other horrors.

Be well, and flea free,

Much love,

Lily.

The rat will tell the dog the secret of the stag, and he shall soon see the son God gave him. Let it not be long.

Remus placed the photo and the letter carefully aside before the tears began to fall. There had been no mention of him in the letter, which was a small mercy. If they'd just had it… he began the thought several times, but managed to quash it before it went too far. Sirius had lived with the proof of his innocence right under the very same roof, and he had either forgotten, or repressed the memory. It probably wouldn't have done any good, he reminded himself. Fudge's angry and uncomprehending face rose in his mind's eye.

It was replaced by Lily's, as she bent to kiss him farewell. Sirius was supposed to have performed the charm that day. But instead they had waited a day, and had Peter perform it instead. She had looked at him so sadly, and he had thought it was only the acceptance that this was all too real for them now. All too real.

Slowly he began to cry, sitting alone in his dead friend's house, surrounded by long forgotten mementoes of a happier past. He cried for the first time. For Peter, whose weaknesses had never been contemplated by his friends; for Lily and James, whose lives had been given to protect their son; for Harry, who had never know them; and for Sirius, whose own guilt had kept him a prisoner long after the crimes he had been framed for. For both Sirius and Harry, whose sense of bravery and battle had been the undoing of both of them. And he cried for himself, which he had never done before, as the last surviving member of group of friends who had thought they would last forever.

Night fell and room grew cold. Remus knew that if he didn't let someone know he was still alive they would send someone to look for him. Mad-Eye had always worried about how haunted the house really was. He carefully repacked Sirius's box of keepsakes and sealed it, keeping only Lily's letter and the photo free. He would be able to join dinner at the Burrow with a lighter heart, once he had done one last thing.


	3. Late at Night: Wesley

Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

* * *

Wesley didn't often look at his mail before he opened it these days. Early on he had spent time on each envelope, excited by just having received it. But it was late, and he was preparing to leave before he remembered that he had received anything at all. At first he was too distracted to notice that the paper was heavier than usual, or the script old-fashioned. He did notice when he unfolded the heavy pages and something fell to the floor.

He stooped to pick it up. It was old, and he had to look at it for several moments before he recognised himself in the centre. When he did, he smiled. He had been so naïve at twenty, and so ridiculously dressed. At least he was poking his tongue out, he thought — that showed some life.

The night was forever imprinted in his mind as alcohol, an in depth discussion and a beautiful young woman with red hair. He looked at the letter, which would at least remind him of her name. "Dear sir… I was friends… Halloween of that year… sorry to have to tell you…"

Somehow he made he way to the couch and sat down. He tried to read the letter again, to absorb the words properly. He had managed to turn off most of the lights before remembering his letters and the present darkness let him forget his own life. For a moment he could hear her say her name, and feel her hand in his. He had only thought of her once in fifteen years, and hadn't even remembered her name. So why could he feel his heart so heavily at learning she had been dead long before then?

It was Fred who found Wesley, not long before midnight. He was supposed to have met her, Gunn and Knox for a drink, and she had been worried when he didn't show. She found him in his office, sitting on his couch, trying to read by the light of one small lamp. He didn't acknowledge her knock, so she entered and sat next him.

Wesley was barely aware of her presence at all. One hand held a forgotten piece of paper, the other an old photo. Fred leaned closer to see it, and he handed it to her absently.

She was sure that the man in the middle was him. He looked much more stiff upper-lippy there than he did now, and also rather drunk. He was poking his tongue out at the camera and Fred smiled. She rarely saw such a silly side in Wesley. It was nice to know that it was there.

"Wesley?" she said, quietly.

He blinked and turned slowly to face her.

"When was this taken?"

"Long time ago," he said. "Fifteen years ago, maybe. We'd just graduated, and she was going into hiding."

"Who?"

He waved the question away. Fred looked back down at the photo. There wasn't any woman in it. Perhaps she had taken it? Wesley sighed in aggravation.

"There was something about prophecies," he said.

Fred just waited for him to continue.

"We were talking about prophecies. There was a prophecy about her, and her son, and she was going into hiding, but she didn't want to. She wanted to fight whoever was after them. She didn't want to be bound by the fates. And I remember thinking that worse than knowing what a prophecy said was knowing that there was a prophecy about yourself, and knowing that there was nothing that you could do."

He sighed again and pushed himself to his feet. Fred stood too, still holding the photo gently. Wesley paced across the room.

"When did you– when did you get this photo?"

"Just now," Wesley said. "It was sent from England days ago. But that's not the point. The point is that I remembered that night, I remembered what she taught me."

Fred tried to make her voice light. "Of course you do. Someone sent you the photo she took."

"Not now, last year!" he growled.

Fred took a step back. Wesley stopped pacing and took a deep breath to calm himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Last year, for some reason, something made me think of her. But I can't remember what. I just know that it's important."

"Who is she?" Fred asked.

She took another step, closer to Wesley and peered through the dark, trying to make out his face. He looked as though he were going to cry.

"Was," he said. "She was… just this woman we met in a bar after graduation. She had a son, and a husband, and a prophecy. We drank, and talked. She beat me at a game of pool. She knew about the Slayer. She was impressed that we were going to be Watchers."

Wesley's recollections petered out and he sank slowing to the floor. Fred crouched next to him. She placed a hand tentatively on his shoulder. He didn't flinch, so she leant on him to keep her balance. He was staring intently at nothing on the other side of the room.

"She died?"

"Years ago," Wesley said. "Soon after I met her. There was a prophecy, see."

He giggled, a sound which sent shivers down Fred's spine. She repositioned herself so she could sit next Wesley, with a hand on his back.

"You're allowed to mourn her," she said, quietly, thinking that 'cry' probably wasn't a good word to use.

Wesley shook his head.

"She's gone," he said. "She died years ago. And I don't remember what she looked like. I didn't even remember her name."

The office was dark, and the image that he saw was a dingy bar on the other side of the room, with a few gruff locals. Fred's presence was all that kept him awake and aware of the rest of the world. He passed her the letter that had come with the photo.

Fred read it silently. It was short, simply laying out the fact of Lily Potter's murder, that she was betrayed. The friend who wrote it, Remus Lupin, thanked Wesley for the small measure of peace he and his friends had given her and bade him remember her well.

Fred gave a small sigh of remorse as she read and Wesley smiled. He knew that she would be sympathetic, that she would understand that even after such a long time the death of someone you barely knew could move you close to tears, however foolish it would be to cry.

Wesley could still remember himself then. He had been so confident, so sure after one evening of freedom that he knew what the world was like and was ready to confront it. If he closed his eyes he could see her, on the other side of the pool table, red hair in the flickering light. He had wanted to impress her. They had drunk together. He was going off to be a Watcher to young Slayer who would able to fight without the threat of prophecies. And Lily was going to survive to see the resolution of the prophecy about her son.

But she had died, and he had aided Faith's escape from prison to help Angel.

Fred stood up, jerking him out of his thoughts. She offered a hand to pull him up, and he accepted it gratefully. Suddenly he was standing too close to her as she smiled at him.

"You should go home, Wesley," she told him. "Or you won't be able to do anything tomorrow."

Wesley nodded. They had work to do here. Important work, he knew. And there was the Shanshu prophecy to translate, and any number of other texts that would important in days, months, years to come.

Fred was smiling at him, encouraging him to believe her and leave the office for the day. He folded the photo back into the letter and slid them gently into the inside pocket of his jacket. Fred took his hand lead him out of the building.

She hugged him briefly before they parted and he knew that everything was still just as it had been. Everything would be okay.

* * *

THE END


End file.
